


Till we're lights on the horizon

by laughingpineapple



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Old Friends, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-26 10:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17744606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: The stars showed no path that Bertrude had not already chosen for herself.





	Till we're lights on the horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syrupwit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/gifts).



Bertrude found him at the edge of the forest, roots burrowed deep in the ground, as still as the line of trees beyond him. She could leave him to his thoughts. She could keep following her path through the woods under the waning starlight, in search of the pale mushrooms whose twisted gills can guide the dreaming thoughts like a map, and they would both be back in the blackwagon by dawn, no harm, no foul. She could. She wouldn't, and they both knew it.

 

“Dearest friend.”

Volfred spoke as if he had been wrenched away from the dream-trails himself, a little lost, a little unsteady, worrying words when applied to him, although it pleased Bertrude that he still had the presence of mind to recognize her slithering and greet her.

“The night bringeth new paths, Sandalwood, but thy roots falter. What, prithee, was thy thoughts’ destination, that a crone may know and guide thee?”

“The destination itself is, I am afraid, abundantly clear. Though your offer is noted and appreciated, my friend. I find myself regretting not the goal itself but, increasingly, the costs it begets.”

“Speak thy mind or do not…”

“If you insist. I have conferred with our Reader about the Plan which matters above us all…”

The conversation had been illuminating, Volfred continued. Having cleared the board of all sentimentalities, and of the maudlin hopes each of them carried in their hearts that the stars may yet turn around, they had come to the conclusion that the upcoming opportunity may be their last. Scribes bless them all, the Reader thought it would necessarily be Volfred's turn to stand before the Fall of Soliam.

“Our congratulations on thy Plan,” she said once it was clear he would not be explaining himself any further, “which shall then surely succeed.” And if her words sounded cold, they were, as always, sincere.

Bertrude coiled up next to him. She breathed in the night air, savoring its deepest smells as she caught them with her forked tongue, the dark earthen odors of zinc and manganese and lead and the rare metals of this land that alchemists yet dreaded to name. The rich tobacco of Volfred's pipe seeped in and for a moment, achingly, it felt like home.

 

“In truth, I believe, we all have but a handful of kindred spirits in this world,” the handsome rascal picked up again, ever so prone to lecturing instead of talking, even among peers. “Some of them, by inscrutable fates, are never made to cross our paths. The others...” 

As if the destination of his verbal meanderings were not itself abundantly clear to Bertrude, or to anyone who, like him and his co-conspirator, might have ever bothered to make an effort to set aside sentimentalities and maudlin hopes.

“Nnnnnrrrrrgh,  _ Volfred _ ,” she cut him off. “As we know thee to be well-versed in the olden tongue, we are certain it has not escaped thine attention that one inssstance of antonomasia surviveth from the times of Lu Sclorian, its etymology self-evident.”

That got a chuckle out of him. They used to keep score, when they were younger, daring each other to keep a somber face against more and more outrageous dissertations. She missed that. Judging by the glimmer in his eyes, he did too.

“Have we made ourselves understood?”

“Oh you have, as clear as the dawn from atop Mount Alodiel. But please, do go on. You started this, my friend, 'tis only fair that you get to state your conclusion out loud.”

“My pleasure. Thou art a sap, Sandalwood, in every acceptation of the word thou might one day print in that dictionary thou dreameth of. We have said our piece, thy turn now.”

“Very well. We found each other twice and by my meddling there shall not be a third. It is a steep price to pay.”

She huffed, dozens of snakes hissing at once. “Thy pain is as fresh as thy roots.”

“And yours too old, dear Bertrude.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they stood still against the dwindling night. The forest settled around them - snails climbed Volfred’s roots, ashen flowers shed their petals on Bertrude’s tail. Lone birds called from the depths. 

 

“You knew? Forgive my prying, but is it not news to you that our dwindling chances can now be counted with some degree of precision, that they amount to less than our ranks, and we shall not, in the end, all meet again whence we came from?”

“We chose our land already, under a starlit sky. This changeth nothing.”

“Ah.” He considered her words. “The fate of Molten Milithe.”

“Such we would once have called it, yet her star burneth no more. It shall be our fate alone, with a mantle of darkness barring all old guidance. See no ill omen in this, nrrrgghhhh. There is discovery in darkness, there is truth.”

“There is kinship in darkness,” Volfred agreed, and the Reader's words still echoed in their ears: mere distance would not separate their spirits. “In times of joy as well as sorrow, we shall look up at the same sky.”

“We shall enjoy the privacy it shall grant until the day thy star riseth to blind us, nrrrggghhhhh.”

“Is that so, my friend?” He wasted no time pretending that his star may not rise past his mortal days: modesty had always suited them both poorly. “Then in truth I shall find ways to make amends for the darkness I will have deprived you of. To you, dear Bertrude, let my star be a guide to secret paths and secret thoughts.”

“That shall be agreeable.”

  
  
  



End file.
